


A Soldier's Soliloquy

by Sherbetlemonsandshuriken



Category: military - Fandom
Genre: British Army, Military, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 01:19:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1709753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherbetlemonsandshuriken/pseuds/Sherbetlemonsandshuriken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was Highly Commended for the Hall Caine Prize in 2014, which was based on the theme of 'Heroes'. This is actually one of my favourite stories (that I've written), and it's about an issue that remains  ever close to my heart, as I aspire to be an Ammunition Technical Officer in the British Army (basically IED and bomb disposal.)<br/>It's perfectly fine for the Hannibal ACCA website to use this work on their site :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Soldier's Soliloquy

He treads carefully through the desert, with eyes on fire that have burnt for far too long.  
His feet hit the ground lightly, flinching from the kiss of the dust, each step placed with precision. He’s ever vigilant for the hidden death, a far greater threat than the monster beneath the bed that left him drenched as a child. One hundred follow behind him, all in step, following the proven route with no deviations. It’s the only sound he can hear above the quietly reassuring hum of his metal detector.  
In front of him, the desert stretches to the mountains, vast and empty, 120 degreses in the shade. He silently curses at their snow-capped peaks, already tasting the snowflakes on his parched tongue. The heat manifests itself as a glimmer, shimmering like a portal to another world. He wonders bitterly what place magic has in this godforsaken land, where even the floor will kill you, despite the gold in the hills. Or so he’d heard say, anyway.  
He takes another tentative step, follow the prescribed step: outer arch, heel, ball, toes. The relief of the man some fifteen meters behind him is palpable- and the collective sign that overwhelms him from behind takes the heavy weight from his shoulders momentarily, and blows on past.  
Beyond the heat mirage, and hidden in the shadow of the foothills, is the target, two clicks away, give or take. Here, the trails smells of old dust, freshly hung in the air. His furtive glances ahead, for potential cover and potential contact, diminish to almost none. The unpleasant crisping of the back of his neck is inconsequential- today is not his day.  
A beat of sweat rolls over his lips, and his tongue darts over its trail before the sun claims its moisture, only to be repelled by the salt. His mouth is dry, made dryer still by the cloying dust that covers every crevice of his mouth. For a second, he is distracted by the sight of a bush laden with bright berries, and his foot hits the floor four centimetres from its intended destination.  
And the ground gives beneath his feet, and the two saw blades that were once so cruelly separated by fate are reunited by the same apathetic mistress who has doomed his very existence. The circuit is complete- the detonator primed and charged.  
He knows this but is too late. With a force kin to a bursting dam, the ground explodes upwards, a geyser of hot dirt, hot blood, a dust cloud mushrooming above, flesh scattered across the desert floor. Suddenly, everything is silent.  
He doesn’t realise that the quiet whimpering he can hear is his own, barely feels his eardrum, perforated by the blast, only focused on the beating, burning pumping out of the shredded stumps where his legs once were.  
And his anger suddenly bubbles out, as he bleeds out, a soliloquy of sorts, never to be heard. He doesn’t want to die here, on foreign soil, tears irrigating broken fields, parched of love, and home, and all he holds dear.  
He imagines the scene, the red-capped policemen on the front step, sombre-faced, an unforgettable, irredeemable omen of devastating change he sees the parade, hears the marching boots in mindless time, draped in the flag stitched onto his arm.  
Then the morphine hits and he can finally speak, and tearfully begs for the portal in his pocket, and when it’s placed in his bloody hands, he sees the future he will never have, the arrow to the knee, the white dress, the school photos, growing old, a baby in arthritic hands.  
It’s a future only realised in these few fleeting futilities, but it’s a world where he wants to stay; one where he is a father, a husband, a grandfather- anything but the lonely soldier, abandoned by all. Even his lifeblood lows away from him, a rivulet, a harsh red strike across the green zone.  
The helicopter lands, rotors whipping ancient dust into the air once more, all too late. Back at base, a staff officer draws a thick, red cross through the date on the calendar. He flicks idly through the pages and drops them, sighing heavily. Back home, the sky cries over another shroud of red, white and blue.


End file.
